The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

Title: The Love InterestAuthor: Cale DietrichGood things about this book: Its potential and it can be funny.Bad things about this book: It lose itself and it’s quite random.Do I recommend it? Yes, give it a try.Rate: 4/5 (I have to be honest, it’s more like a 3 but the first part made me laugh and it was a nice feeling)

There’s an Italian song called “Triangolo” that always comes to mind when I read about two boys fighting over the heart of a frail damsel. These boys are usually perfection, carved from marble, dreamy beyond compare. If there is something I like less than the dreaded miscommunication, it is the dreaded love triangle.

Watch the video of “Triangolo”. Enjoy!

If I was going to judge this book by its cover and by the first part of the summary, then this was obviously a capital n No; but then I read “What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training” and, well well well, color me interested. Now that’s a book I want to read. So I read it and, even it wasn’t exactly the way I pictured it, it was thoroughly cute and funny with a pinch (more like half a cup) of action.

There’s an agency that recruits Love Interests to plant in the lives of important people to spy on them and steal their secrets. Sounds plausible, nice idea. They train people since they’re very young until they are needed; they are then given a new identity and a new appearance in order to be ready to woo the Chosen they’ve been assigned to. There is so much potential here and for more or less 70% of the book it was up to it.

A Chosen is, well, chosen, her name is Juliet and two boys are sent to win her heart. A Nice and a Bad like they always do. They have a coach to guide them, teach them how to act in front of Juliet and create scenarios that she will certainly fall for. Looks like a nice and healthy completion but it’s not: the one that’s not chosen gets killed. So now you may understand how I started panicking and trying to figure out a HEA ending with these new premises.

You’re lucky we made you hot, Caden. If she wasn’t attracted to you she would’ve barfed.

Caden is the Nice. Is he nice? No, he’s not but he can act and after spending so much time in that prison-like place, he’ll do anything to get out. Caden is funny and plays the nice and super cheesy flirt boy perfectly. Oh my, some of the things he said made me giggle: they were THAT cheesy. Come on, who says that? He is playing all his Nice Guy cards but in his mind he can’t stop thinking about Dylan and his thoughts are hilarious, I just loved them!

Dylan is the Bad. Is he bad? Not at all. He has a kind heart and child-like honesty that was so nice to see. Not being afraid to feel and express emotions is a quality I want to be shown in books more often. Dylan plays the sexy, bad, tormented soul kind of part and he plays it greatly. Who wouldn’t double check a certified bad boy leaning against a tree reading a poetry book with a pained look on his face? He’s in it to win it!

“Apparently it’ll make me seem like a tortured soul who is lashing out, because I can’t handle all the epic, sexy pain within me.”

Caden and Dylan are both “enhanced” with plastic surgery: new jaw, new hair color, new eye color, and perfect tan. They are built to be the guys any girl would want. They can’t go unnoticed and with the changes they are like supermodels and they have all eyes on them. Put yourself in Juliet’s pants: you suddenly have two gorgeous boys flirting with you so of course you have doubts, you have every right to like them both. Come on, they are put there to please and she is pleased. Oh, she is pleased indeed!

The story is in Caden’s POV so we see how he understands what he feels about Dylan is more than simple friendship and he starts to put pieces together of his life in the facility, realizing he has always been attracted to guys. He is of course troubled, but not much and I liked seeing how he starts reacting to Dylan’s presence and how he knows these feelings can change the game they are playing. Yet he doesn’t once deny he likes him and it means a lot to the story he does that.

I didn’t think I was a chest-hair type of guy, but judging by the erratic things my heart is doing at the moment, I totally am.

As I said, this book was funny, cute, cheesy, YA trope extraordinaire, more or less until 70% of the book. Then it went wild, kind of off rails and got a little weird, a little over the top. Things happened, many things, and one thing in particular I felt was really unnecessary. The ending was pretty rushed and lots of things were left unexplained. I expected a more detailed epilogue.

Nevertheless this was quite an enjoyable book and, like I gave it a chance and liked it, I think everyone who likes the genre should, too.

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